I'll finish today with Age of Enlightenment and freemasonry as the movement from religion, royalty, and the massive spending in the Renaissance by these two institutions on the arts and culture towards what austere business people see as spending all revenue towards advancing corporate power and wealth. We looked at how the word liberal has been used for left and far-right political policy----and how Libertarian and Marxism is again used as left and far-right. The next twist of political phrasing is coming from HUMANITIES VS HUMANISM.
We hear Wall Street global corporate neo-liberals and neo-cons using the words arts and humanities all the time in this corporatization of K-12. They are bringing all kinds of corporate non-profits to wrap-around our public schools making it seem this privatization will include arts and humanities when there is absolutely NO INTENTION of doing so. This is why we see the attack under Clinton/Bush/Obama on our public universities and the liberal arts and humanities in our K-12 over these few decades. So, while they fill the public policy with funding for arts and humanities, the US International Economic Zones under Trans Pacific Trade Pact does not see funding for such unproductive expense of money----beauty and culture. We see this under fascism every time-----art becomes about promoting industry for example and church becomes marginalized because morals, ethics, and human rights get in the way of autocratic power and wealth.
'One of the reasons this movement gained momentum in Europe was that it propagated as an intellectual movement, and not as an Anti-church or anti-theology movement (Although it was easy to interpret it as such, the presentation wasn’t so raw as I’ve put it here… The consequence was an ideological shift from man to God, but Humanists did not portray the movement as Anti-God):'
I think Republicans now understand that Reagan never intended to be a conservative Republican just as Democrats see Clinton never intended to be a socially progressive neo-liberal. This article shows where we are today-----far-right Reagan/Clinton neo-liberalism vs conservative Christian Republicans. NOT A DEMOCRATIC VOICE IN THE MIX. Social Democrats have been strong supporters of religious freedom and multiculturalism so we know we can have a strong social capitalist economy AND respect issues of religion and culture. Today we have neo-cons and neo-liberals coming out as the close to Libertarians they are and the religious right and left are now the ones under attack. Remember fascism comes after sets of population one at a time---including religion. I don't believe there is anyone left in the Democratic Party not knowing Clinton and Obama are far-right---look at the definition of Libertarianism -----naked capitalism with very little government with capability of earning unlimited wealth.
TO GET TO THE ONE WORLD INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC ZONE MODEL----THEY NEED TO TAKE RELIGIONS OUT OF THE PICTURE.
'Put very simply, the travail of freedom is this: Immoral actors take advantage of moral ones. If everyone has to rationally suspect others of immoral behavior in order to protect themselves, then the value of exchange is severely undercut by the cost of self-protective action. Eventually, in an attempt to ease the expense of self-protection, participants petition the government for regulation. Regulation undercuts the entire libertarian idea'.
I THINK SOCIAL CONSERVATIVES ARE REALIZING THAT CHRISTIAN VALUES AND MORALITY HAVE LEFT THE GATE WITH CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA NEO-LIBERALS CLOSE TO LIBERTARIANISM. THE CHURCH NOW FEELS THE ATTACK.
Can Libertarians and Social Conservatives find Common Ground?by Hunter Baker
Ronald Reagan
As the standard bearer for American conservatism for two decades, Ronald Reagan effortlessly embodied fusionism by uniting Mont Pelerin style libertarians, populist Christians, Burkean conservatives, and national security voters into a devastatingly successful electoral bloc. Today, it is nearly impossible to imagine a candidate winning both New York and Texas, but Reagan and that group of fellow travelers did.
In the meantime, the coalition has begun to show strain as the forces pushing outward exceed those holding it together. The Soviet Union, once so great a threat that Whittaker Chambers felt certain he was switching to the losing side when he began to inform on fellow Communist agents working within the United States, evaporated in what seemed like a period of days in the early 1990s. Suddenly, the ultimate threat of despotic big government eased and companions in arms had the occasion to re-assess their relationship. The review of competing priorities has left former friends moving apart. Perhaps nowhere is the tension greater and more consequential than between the socially conservative elements of the group and devotees of libertarianism.
The two groups have little natural tendency to trust each other when not confronted by a common enemy as in the case of the Cold War. Libertarians simply want to minimize the role of government as much as possible. For them, questions of maintaining strong traditional family units and preserving sexual and/or bioethical mores fall into an unessential realm as far as government is concerned. The government, echoing the thought of John Locke, should primarily occupy itself with providing for physical safety of the person while allowing for the maximum freedom possible for pursuit of self-interest.
Social conservatives similarly view the government as having a primary mission of providing safety, but they also look to the law as a source of moral authority. Man-made law, for them, should seek to be in accord to some degree with divine and natural law. Rifts open wide when social conservatives pursue a public policy agenda designed to prevent divorce, encourage marriage over cohabitation, prevent new understandings of marriage from emerging (e.g. gay marriage or polygamous marriage), prevent avant garde developments in biological experimentation, and a variety of other issues outside (from the libertarian perspective) the true mandate of government that cannot seek to define the good, the right, and the beautiful for a community of individuals. To the degree social conservatives seek to achieve some kind of collective excellence along the lines suggested by Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, libertarians see a mirror image of the threat posed by big-government leftists.
Equally intense suspicions exist on the socially conservative side of the relationship. Libertarians can appear to be obsessed with money and a desire to be left alone, unencumbered by any obligation to their fellows other than not to interfere with their lives. The tension inherent in the relationship erupted during the American presidential primaries when the libertarian-oriented Club for Growth clashed with former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, a Christian conservative. Club for Growth seemed to single out Huckabee for the most uncharitable view possible of his free-market bonafides. Rather than attempt conciliation, Huckabee apparently relished the attack and labeled the small government group "The Club for Greed."
The question, borrowed from the longest running feature in women's magazine history, is "Can this marriage be saved?" Do libertarians and social conservatives with religious concerns have a relationship worth preserving? As a Christian with strong sympathies toward social conservatism, I can help address part of that question. My answer is that libertarians and social conservatives have a strong interest in seeing each other persist in the American polity. Perhaps a libertarian analyst can address the issue from the other side.
So, why should libertarians see value in what social and religious conservatives hope to achieve? The answer lies in the concept at the core of the American experiment. America is not about unfettered freedom. America is about a particular type of liberty that has been the glory of the Western heritage, ordered liberty. Freedom without a strong moral basis ends up being an empty promise. The American founding generation understood the problem very clearly. The solution that appealed to a great many of them was to encourage religion among the American people. In their view, the Christian religion helped make citizens fit for a republican style of government. Meaningful freedom required the exercise of virtue on behalf of citizens. The connection between religion and virtue was easy to make. After all, even Voltaire hid his skeptical conversations about religion from his servants for fear they'd steal the silver if released from fear of divine punishment.
Milton Friedman
Put very simply, the travail of freedom is this: Immoral actors take advantage of moral ones. If everyone has to rationally suspect others of immoral behavior in order to protect themselves, then the value of exchange is severely undercut by the cost of self-protective action. Eventually, in an attempt to ease the expense of self-protection, participants petition the government for regulation. Regulation undercuts the entire libertarian idea. The key, of course, to breaking the cycle of advantage-taking and regulation-building is to change the nature of the actors. The more virtuous the actors, the less opportunistic behavior, and the more confidence all actors can have at the outset of exchange. What is needed is trust. With trust, the costs of transaction rapidly decline and the need for government regulation and enforcement moves downward, as well.
Social conservatives press for public policies that tend to increase social capital by improving citizens.
Just as an example, consider the social conservative push toward policies that encourage marriage rather than cohabitation and discourage divorce. Social statistics from the last twenty years establish in a fairly uncontroversial fashion that children from intact, two-parent families will, on average, perform better in school, be less likely to get pregnant out of wedlock, be less likely to do drugs or abuse alcohol, and are substantially less likely to spend time in prison. If there are policies that can actually increase the likelihood that children can be raised in intact families, then it makes sense to pursue those policies (within reason) because they will become, on average, more virtuous citizens less likely to impose costs on others through moral failures. If the logic here is sound, then libertarians have an incentive to consider at least some policy activities of social conservatives as potentially justifiable and beneficial even within a libertarian framework.
The crux of the matter is social capital. Social capital is the name we give the value generated by the virtuous actions and attitudes of the people. A society with a libertarian style government is a near impossibility without substantial social capital. No trust, no virtue, no small government. This formula is virtually axiomatic.
Signing of the Constitution of the United States
Another point of connection between libertarians and social/religious conservatives occurs because of theology. Social conservatives tend to believe human beings are tainted by a sinful nature. If we are all sinful, then how sound a policy is it to place a great deal of power in a government of one person or of many persons? Though the Christian revelation, for example, does not aim its canon specifically against monarchy or any other kind of high-powered government, the practical outworking of a doctrine of original sin is that power should be restricted, checked, and divided. The American constitutional regime set up by the founding generation should surprise no one. It was a likely outcome not only of a group of thinkers influenced by Locke, but also by the Calvinism that had long been prominent in the new world as the faith of the Puritans.
This suspicion of power continues to unite social conservatives and libertarians. While libertarians might protest that social conservatives seek to expand the government's interest in "private" matters of sex, reproduction, and marriage, the reality is that they have primarily fought a rearguard action in which they attempt to preserve laws under attack by an activist judiciary. Social conservatives have not fought for some new regime of moral authority at the expense of freedom. Rather, they have tried to save the old one because of the educational effect of law.
When it comes to new ideas about expanding government, social conservatives are largely still quite reserved exactly because of their desire not to feed a bureaucratic beast likely to develop an agenda independent of its intended purpose. As a group, they would far prefer to see mediating institutions take on the great social reforms of the day, just as they would prefer to see the church return to a much more prominent role in addressing both the needs and root causes of poverty. Another issue that offers great promise for the relationship between social/religious conservatives and libertarians is school choice. Prior to September 11, the movement for school choice was gaining steam very rapidly. It was the rare initiative that seemed to fit libertarian purposes easily while simultaneously addressing the question of social justice. After September 11, the war on terror sucked all the air out of the room for creative social policy advances, and school choice moved well down the national agenda.
School choice hasn't gone away, though. It is a matter that promises to re-emerge powerfully when domestic policy again moves to center focus. A great many evangelicals probably came to know of Milton Friedman because of his work in school choice rather than because of his justly famous broader work in economic theory. For libertarians the interest comes from harnessing the power of competition to improve the entire educational system and to take a step toward privatizing a massive public undertaking. Social conservatives perceive those virtues, but are more interested in the protection school choice offers for their right to control the education of their children and to insulate them from what they view as the indoctrination of left-wing ideology.
So, can the marriage be saved? Are libertarians and social conservatives destined to grow further apart or can they unite around these points of connection involving social capital, suspicion of government power, and the privatization of public education? I submit the points of connection, notwithstanding messy public blow-ups like the Huckabee/Club for Growth affair, are much stronger than the forces pulling the two groups apart. This survey demonstrates how much they have in common and how fruitful conversation between the two can be.
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We saw the attempt at coalition between Libertarian/neo-liberal forces and the conservative religious sector setting school choice as a policy with which they could unite. So, Clinton/Bush/Obama started this K-12 school choice to appease religious schools but I think these several years have shown the conservative religious groups that Wall Street global corporate neo-liberals---Libertarians have a different goal---global corporate K-12 with Common Core and evaluation/testing/teach to the test kind of eliminates what the conservative Christians thought they were getting. So, all this support for privatization of K-12 came with school choice while social Democrats fight to keep our public education strong. What we are getting is just what Wall Street global corporate neo-liberals wanted----a vocational tracking with no liberal arts and humanities to disrupt the movement into the workplace. Charters that are religious in the past will be gone soon if this SCHOOL CHOICE farce continues.
The Age of Enlightenment with its freemasonry centered on wealthy families and the genius amongst them----so that is still the goal of neo-liberal education reform only now the global rich will be those freemasons. The movement around the world in nations tied to International Economic Zones are----atheism and humanism.
Remember, the dictator of Brunei may lead a Muslim nation but he is not Muslim. A dictator in Chile may lead a Catholic nation but he/she is not Catholic. Clinton/Bush/Obama may walk into a Christian church but they are not Christian. All these leaders involved in the building of ONE WORLD International Economic Zones are all working towards eliminating that pressure of religion needed in integrating a global workforce.
It is the Wall Street Baltimore Development partnered with conservative Christian churches that have moved this very bad Race to the Top school choice corporate K-12 policy having made citizens the big losers----well, next come the religious charters.
I think home schooled, private religious schools, and public schools can feel they are losing in global corporate K-12.
HUMANISM OVER HUMANITIES.
What is School Choice?THE FRIEDMAN FOUNDATION’S GOAL
We believe public education funds should follow students to the schools or services that best fit their needs.
Here’s how school choice opponents believe education funding should work in America.
__________________________________________'Vadim Antonov
Vadim Antonov
Not possible. Marxism and classical liberalism (aka libertarianism in US) are logically incompatible'.
'Jacob VanWagoner
Jacob VanWagoner, on a left-to-right scale, I'm Up.
Fundamentally, Marxism at the end of the day calls for abolition of private property. Fundamentally, Libertarianism holds the right to own private property according to a person's own will as sacred. The two are incompatible'.
After 3 decades of being lied to, cheated, and having all wealth stolen by Clinton/Bush/Obama far-right neo-liberals/Libertarians----we are now supposed to believe that a movement of LEFTIST LIBERTARIAN MARXISTS are going to grab hold of this far-right Wall Street global corporate naked capitalism. Watching this Greek minister graduated from Harvard using all the EURO banking policies from credit default swaps to bond leveraging as Finance minister elected by Greek citizens as being left-leaning---NONE OF THIS HAS ANYTHING TO DO WITH LEFT-LEANING MARXISM. This is yet another spin to what is simply the far-right autocratic fascist global corporate rule. As with Stalin, Mao, and Hitler the far-right use very militaristic, authoritarian, repressive measures to get people in line with goals---and this is to what the US will need as first world Democratic citizens are pushed into International Economic Zone global corporate campus/global factory model. Religion cannot hold up during these kinds of political movements ergo---they always call them socialist as in Democratic socialism-----or Marxist as in Mao's----------
The Great Leap Forward (Chinese: 大跃进; pinyin: Dà yuè jìn) of the People's Republic of China (PRC) was an economic and social campaign by the Communist Party of China (CPC) from 1958 to 1961. The campaign was led by Mao Zedong and aimed to rapidly transform the country from an agrarian economy into a socialist society through rapid industrialization and collectivization.
Rapid industrialization has been what Clinton neo-liberal International Economic Zone policies did overseas these several decades----and it was not left-leaning.
Is it possible to be a libertarian Marxist, like the Greek finance minister claims to be?
7 Answers
Simon Kinahan, Software developer, EDA guy, reluctant product manager
896 Views • Simon has 30+ answers in Politics
Yes. Left-libertarianism is a fairly well established position, and many people who subscribe to it also have basically Marxist economics. There are even such people within the US libertarian party - Charles W. Johnson, for instance, although they're a tiny minority. Kevin Carson gives a good explanation of Free Market Anti-Capitalism if you want to see the logical conclusion of this line of thinking.
As to how you do this - for starters, you have to abandon Marx & Engels political program as hopelessly authoritarian. Since its also hopelessly outdated (universal suffrage did not lead to communism) that's no great loss, but you also have to ignore all of its Leninist and Trotskyite successors barring maybe a few that have faint glimmers of some kind of conscience. That leaves you with a reading of Marx's economics that says that without coercion, the entire value of goods would accrue to the people who labored to create them, with nothing left for rent, profit or interest paid to the owners of property.
Where you go from there is highly idiosyncratic - there is no specific political program. Most people following this line of thought seem to be anarchists, so they're expecting some kind of self-organization to emerge in the absence of a state that's market-based but where capital is collectively owned by the laborers using or providing it. This doesn't necessarily entail any contradictions, although it does obviously raise questions of efficiency.
If anything there's an even tinier number of people who want to hold to socialist ideas, don't believe in direct coercion of property owners, and believe we need some kind of state to exist. I assume that's Yanis Varoufakis, or he wouldn't be a finance minister. I can't find a clear explanation anywhere of what he believes, but if he's like most others in that camp his short term program is probably indistinguishable from any other moderate socialist or social democrat, with some emphasis on lessening the amount of coercion to which the relatively powerless are exposed and encouraging self-organization.
Written 18 Feb 2015 • View Upvotes
Achilleas Vortselas, Athenian
Most Viewed Writer in Politics of Greece
There is a very popular saying that goes*:
"In Greece, you are what you claim to be."
It is a very well targeted saying, since in our anarchic society, posturing is quite widespread and ,very often, it succeeds.
* It was made popular by painter Yannis Tsarouchis, in the 60's. He claimed that it was first uttered by actor G. Karoussos.
Written 11 Feb 2015 •
Rob Weir, Political Animal
Only if one misunderstands Marx, libertarianism, or both.
Written 13 Feb 2015 •
Kenneth Cochran, Software developer, staunch advocate of the right to arm bears.
314 Views • Kenneth has 90+ answers in Politics
Yes. I have met some that self identify as libertarian Marxists or socialists. They reject the notion that socialism can only be accomplished through authoritarian control. Instead they believe socialism can be accomplished through voluntary means. Marx himself defined communism as an anarchy with collective ownership of the means of production. Personally I have my doubts as to whether anarchy or socialism are sustainable especially when combined. Such a society depends on enlightened selflessness and to me this goes against natural self interest.
Having said this it does seem a bit odd to see a high ranking government official in charge of money claim to have an ideology characterized by anti-capitalism and anarchism.
Written 14 Feb 2015 •
Aashishji Dimri, A serious student of politics
219 Views
One can be an advocate of liberty ,some one like Socrates or Victor Hugo and one can be Marxist, if one sincerely practices his idea of austerity and pro poor !
Irrespective of his personal likes and dislikes, the real question is- Will he be able to protect Greece in its worst economic crisis !
Written 25 Jun 2015 • View Upvotes
Vadim Antonov
Not possible. Marxism and classical liberalism (aka libertarianism in US) are logically incompatible. Marxism fundamentally sees people as members of classes and is concerned with correcting supposed inter-class injustice by force. Libertarian political philosophy is fundamentally individualistic and decries any use of force violating individual rights.
Written Feb 11, 2015 • View Upvotes
Jacob VanWagoner, on a left-to-right scale, I'm Up.
Fundamentally, Marxism at the end of the day calls for abolition of private property. Fundamentally, Libertarianism holds the right to own private property according to a person's own will as sacred. The two are incompatible.
There is such a thing as a libertarian socialist, but it calls for 100% voluntary participation, and limits the "public property" to the community level -- the small community owns the property, and the members of the community own the community and have property rights over it.Written Feb 16, 2015
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One way to know whether a political pundit is left-leaning is the measure----does he appear on the Clinton neo-liberal media outlet MSNBC---especially Maddow. They do not allow anyone not tied to far-right neo-liberalism/Libertarianism. Chomsky has been brought from obscurity since 2008 crash to fill this policy push towards Libertarian Marxism.
Someone can be anti-war----anti-government interference in foreign national affairs as Chomsky is and still be far-right Libertarian.
Noam Chomsky, Rachel Maddow Protest Quotes in Madison
Martin Eigenberger
Uploaded on Feb 21, 2011Protest signs referencing Chomsky and Rachel Maddow were among those spotted at the pro-democracy/union rally in Madison, Wisconsin. Please consult AlterNet for up-to-the-hour developments and related stories.
MSNBC's Controlled Opposition: Myth of the Liberal Media
Reich-Wing Watch
Published on Mar 4, 2016MNSBC is just part of facade put on by corporate America to give the illusion of debate. Best described in Noam Chomsky's "Manufacturing Consent." Hillary Clinton is to the right of DONALD TRUMP on some issues such as foreign policy and trade. Yet you wouldn't have the slightest clue in the world if you relied only on MSNBC for political coverage. Liberal MSNBC hosts such as Phil Donahue, Ashley Banified, Jesse Ventura, Cenk Uygur, Ed Schultz, and Melissa Harris-Perry, have either been fired or pushed out for not submitting to the overall MSNBC narrative.
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This is far too long for most folks to read but the abstract centers on the terminology of this Social Darwinism global corporate 1% wealth crowd. Hopkins is ground zero for these far-right Wall Street global corporate ideas. I spoke earlier about concerns over the return of eugenics---or what is now called the NEW eugenics----here we see this humanism working towards ONE WORLD ONE FAITH. This is what Libertarian Marxism will move towards and what will that faith be?
One World, One Faith:
The Quest for Unity in Julian Huxley's Religion of Evolutionary Humanism
Paul T. Phillips
Abstract
Sir Julian Huxley (1887-1975), celebrated British scientist and philosopher, strove through most of his career to establish a non-theistic, rationalist belief system to replace Christianity and other world religions. Believing that the twentieth century provided a unique opportunity for this to happen, evolutionary humanism, as he termed his secular faith, gave direction to most of Huxley's diverse activities as a public intellectual. Rooted in evolutionary science, combined with Idealism, liberal values and a profound belief in progress, Huxley's vision was also suffused with a strong desire for unity in human affairs. This paper examines that quest for unity, the purposes it served, and its reception.
KeywordsJulian Huxley, evolution, science, progress, idealism, unity, religion, christianity, rationalist, planning, eugenics
Before Julian Huxley, there had been others, such as Auguste Comte, who had advocated replacing older religious traditions, especially Christianity, with new, non-theistic, rationalist systems of belief. What was unusual in the system proposed by the celebrated British scientist and philosopher, Sir Julian Huxley (1887–1975), was its extraordinarily strong penchant for unity. With an urgent message that humankind was master of its own fate, and at a time that was pivotal in the history of the planet, Huxley offered a new vision, or secular religion, necessary for the future. An analysis of the quest for unity in his belief system and the purposes which it was designed to serve, as well as the effectiveness of his message form the substance of this essay.
Early in his professional career, Huxley had sketched what he meant by religion. He described "scientific," and later, "evolutionary humanism," in his longest dissertation on the subject, Religion Without Revelation, published in 1927. A substantially revised edition appeared some thirty years later. Huxley believed that a new faith was needed in a modern world [End Page 613] marked by the rapid decline of existing religions. His inspiration came via a casual reading of a volume of Lord Morley's essays while he was awaiting surgery in Colorado. Morley's observation that "the next great task of science will be to create a religion for humanity"1 and his use of the word "science," were crucial for Huxley. Morley made it clear to him that "any real progress in religion nowadays would be the slow product of generations of thinkers and workers reacting on the common thought and practice of the time."2 Huxley did not envisage himself, initially at least, as a Luther or Wesley, let alone a Jesus, and presumed that evolutionary humanism would continue to develop during his lifetime and after. While at first he referred to his religion more as an "attitude of mind"3 than anything else, he would develop an enduring set of principles in the years that followed.
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Since the Age of Enlightenment freemasons were largely scientists whose discoveries advanced industrial/global market products one would look to this idea of scientific progress and social cooperation as fitting right into a ONE WORLD global corporate campus/global factory human capital distribution and it has no deism----no GOD----perfect for far-right Libertarian Marxism.
'replaced by a new system based on scientific progress and social cooperation.
HUMANITIES VS HUMANISM
If human capital are slated to live, eat, be schooled, work on global corporate campuses controlled by their corporate non-profits then why would we need religious charity?
Evolutionary humanism
Harun Yahya's Influences
Julian Huxley, one of Darwin’s leading supporters, sought to place the latter’s biological argument onto a philosophical footing and constructed a new religion under the name of evolutionary humanism.
The aim of this religion was to “ensure that the evolutionary process on Earth reached its maximum conclusion.” This was not restricted to strong organisms living longer and trying to reproduce more offspring. In addition, “it was foreseen that man would develop his own abilities to the highest level.” To put it another way, efforts were to be made to enable mankind to proceed to stages more advanced than the one that human beings are in today. Huxley offered a full definition of the term Humanism:
I use the word ‘Humanist’ to mean someone who believes that man is just as much a natural phenomenon as an animal or a plant, that his body, his mind, and his soul were not supernaturally created but are all products of evolution, and that the is not under the control or guidance of any supernatural Being or beings, but has to rely on himself and his own powers. 156
Huxley’s suggestion that human beings’ sacred aim was to accelerate their own evolution had a profound effect on the American philosopher John Dewey. He developed this line and founded the movement known as Religious Humanism in 1933, publishing the famous Humanist Manifesto. The main idea he emphasized was that the time had come for the traditional Theistic (God-oriented) religions to be done away with and replaced by a new system based on scientific progress and social cooperation.
The deaths of 50 million people in World War II as a result of “scientific progress” rocked the optimism exhibited in the Humanist Manifesto. In the wake of similar blows, Dewey’s followers were forced to partially revise their views, and they published the second Humanist Manifesto in 1973. This one admitted that science may sometimes harm mankind, but preserved the basic idea: Man should now direct his own evolution and could do so through science. As the Manifesto said:
Using technology wisely, we can control our environment, conquer poverty, markedly reduce disease, extend our life-span, significantly modify our behavior, alter the course of human evolution and cultural development, unlock vast new powers, and provide humankind with unparalleled opportunity for achieving an abundant and meaningful life.157
In fact these ideas, adopted consciously or subconsciously by all Darwinists, make crystal clear the fundamental beliefs of the Religion of Evolution. An imaginary process of species evolution is first dreamed up, and it is then assumed that this process is the creator of everything. The further, it is thought that this process can represent salvation for humanity, and it is believed that humanity’s sacred destiny is to serve that process. In short, evolution is both a Creator, and a savior, and a sacred purpose. To short, it is worshipped as a deity.
We hear Wall Street global corporate neo-liberals and neo-cons using the words arts and humanities all the time in this corporatization of K-12. They are bringing all kinds of corporate non-profits to wrap-around our public schools making it seem this privatization will include arts and humanities when there is absolutely NO INTENTION of doing so. This is why we see the attack under Clinton/Bush/Obama on our public universities and the liberal arts and humanities in our K-12 over these few decades. So, while they fill the public policy with funding for arts and humanities, the US International Economic Zones under Trans Pacific Trade Pact does not see funding for such unproductive expense of money----beauty and culture. We see this under fascism every time-----art becomes about promoting industry for example and church becomes marginalized because morals, ethics, and human rights get in the way of autocratic power and wealth.
'One of the reasons this movement gained momentum in Europe was that it propagated as an intellectual movement, and not as an Anti-church or anti-theology movement (Although it was easy to interpret it as such, the presentation wasn’t so raw as I’ve put it here… The consequence was an ideological shift from man to God, but Humanists did not portray the movement as Anti-God):'
I think Republicans now understand that Reagan never intended to be a conservative Republican just as Democrats see Clinton never intended to be a socially progressive neo-liberal. This article shows where we are today-----far-right Reagan/Clinton neo-liberalism vs conservative Christian Republicans. NOT A DEMOCRATIC VOICE IN THE MIX. Social Democrats have been strong supporters of religious freedom and multiculturalism so we know we can have a strong social capitalist economy AND respect issues of religion and culture. Today we have neo-cons and neo-liberals coming out as the close to Libertarians they are and the religious right and left are now the ones under attack. Remember fascism comes after sets of population one at a time---including religion. I don't believe there is anyone left in the Democratic Party not knowing Clinton and Obama are far-right---look at the definition of Libertarianism -----naked capitalism with very little government with capability of earning unlimited wealth.
TO GET TO THE ONE WORLD INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC ZONE MODEL----THEY NEED TO TAKE RELIGIONS OUT OF THE PICTURE.
'Put very simply, the travail of freedom is this: Immoral actors take advantage of moral ones. If everyone has to rationally suspect others of immoral behavior in order to protect themselves, then the value of exchange is severely undercut by the cost of self-protective action. Eventually, in an attempt to ease the expense of self-protection, participants petition the government for regulation. Regulation undercuts the entire libertarian idea'.
I THINK SOCIAL CONSERVATIVES ARE REALIZING THAT CHRISTIAN VALUES AND MORALITY HAVE LEFT THE GATE WITH CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA NEO-LIBERALS CLOSE TO LIBERTARIANISM. THE CHURCH NOW FEELS THE ATTACK.
Can Libertarians and Social Conservatives find Common Ground?by Hunter Baker
Ronald Reagan
As the standard bearer for American conservatism for two decades, Ronald Reagan effortlessly embodied fusionism by uniting Mont Pelerin style libertarians, populist Christians, Burkean conservatives, and national security voters into a devastatingly successful electoral bloc. Today, it is nearly impossible to imagine a candidate winning both New York and Texas, but Reagan and that group of fellow travelers did.
In the meantime, the coalition has begun to show strain as the forces pushing outward exceed those holding it together. The Soviet Union, once so great a threat that Whittaker Chambers felt certain he was switching to the losing side when he began to inform on fellow Communist agents working within the United States, evaporated in what seemed like a period of days in the early 1990s. Suddenly, the ultimate threat of despotic big government eased and companions in arms had the occasion to re-assess their relationship. The review of competing priorities has left former friends moving apart. Perhaps nowhere is the tension greater and more consequential than between the socially conservative elements of the group and devotees of libertarianism.
The two groups have little natural tendency to trust each other when not confronted by a common enemy as in the case of the Cold War. Libertarians simply want to minimize the role of government as much as possible. For them, questions of maintaining strong traditional family units and preserving sexual and/or bioethical mores fall into an unessential realm as far as government is concerned. The government, echoing the thought of John Locke, should primarily occupy itself with providing for physical safety of the person while allowing for the maximum freedom possible for pursuit of self-interest.
Social conservatives similarly view the government as having a primary mission of providing safety, but they also look to the law as a source of moral authority. Man-made law, for them, should seek to be in accord to some degree with divine and natural law. Rifts open wide when social conservatives pursue a public policy agenda designed to prevent divorce, encourage marriage over cohabitation, prevent new understandings of marriage from emerging (e.g. gay marriage or polygamous marriage), prevent avant garde developments in biological experimentation, and a variety of other issues outside (from the libertarian perspective) the true mandate of government that cannot seek to define the good, the right, and the beautiful for a community of individuals. To the degree social conservatives seek to achieve some kind of collective excellence along the lines suggested by Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, libertarians see a mirror image of the threat posed by big-government leftists.
Equally intense suspicions exist on the socially conservative side of the relationship. Libertarians can appear to be obsessed with money and a desire to be left alone, unencumbered by any obligation to their fellows other than not to interfere with their lives. The tension inherent in the relationship erupted during the American presidential primaries when the libertarian-oriented Club for Growth clashed with former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, a Christian conservative. Club for Growth seemed to single out Huckabee for the most uncharitable view possible of his free-market bonafides. Rather than attempt conciliation, Huckabee apparently relished the attack and labeled the small government group "The Club for Greed."
The question, borrowed from the longest running feature in women's magazine history, is "Can this marriage be saved?" Do libertarians and social conservatives with religious concerns have a relationship worth preserving? As a Christian with strong sympathies toward social conservatism, I can help address part of that question. My answer is that libertarians and social conservatives have a strong interest in seeing each other persist in the American polity. Perhaps a libertarian analyst can address the issue from the other side.
So, why should libertarians see value in what social and religious conservatives hope to achieve? The answer lies in the concept at the core of the American experiment. America is not about unfettered freedom. America is about a particular type of liberty that has been the glory of the Western heritage, ordered liberty. Freedom without a strong moral basis ends up being an empty promise. The American founding generation understood the problem very clearly. The solution that appealed to a great many of them was to encourage religion among the American people. In their view, the Christian religion helped make citizens fit for a republican style of government. Meaningful freedom required the exercise of virtue on behalf of citizens. The connection between religion and virtue was easy to make. After all, even Voltaire hid his skeptical conversations about religion from his servants for fear they'd steal the silver if released from fear of divine punishment.
Milton Friedman
Put very simply, the travail of freedom is this: Immoral actors take advantage of moral ones. If everyone has to rationally suspect others of immoral behavior in order to protect themselves, then the value of exchange is severely undercut by the cost of self-protective action. Eventually, in an attempt to ease the expense of self-protection, participants petition the government for regulation. Regulation undercuts the entire libertarian idea. The key, of course, to breaking the cycle of advantage-taking and regulation-building is to change the nature of the actors. The more virtuous the actors, the less opportunistic behavior, and the more confidence all actors can have at the outset of exchange. What is needed is trust. With trust, the costs of transaction rapidly decline and the need for government regulation and enforcement moves downward, as well.
Social conservatives press for public policies that tend to increase social capital by improving citizens.
Just as an example, consider the social conservative push toward policies that encourage marriage rather than cohabitation and discourage divorce. Social statistics from the last twenty years establish in a fairly uncontroversial fashion that children from intact, two-parent families will, on average, perform better in school, be less likely to get pregnant out of wedlock, be less likely to do drugs or abuse alcohol, and are substantially less likely to spend time in prison. If there are policies that can actually increase the likelihood that children can be raised in intact families, then it makes sense to pursue those policies (within reason) because they will become, on average, more virtuous citizens less likely to impose costs on others through moral failures. If the logic here is sound, then libertarians have an incentive to consider at least some policy activities of social conservatives as potentially justifiable and beneficial even within a libertarian framework.
The crux of the matter is social capital. Social capital is the name we give the value generated by the virtuous actions and attitudes of the people. A society with a libertarian style government is a near impossibility without substantial social capital. No trust, no virtue, no small government. This formula is virtually axiomatic.
Signing of the Constitution of the United States
Another point of connection between libertarians and social/religious conservatives occurs because of theology. Social conservatives tend to believe human beings are tainted by a sinful nature. If we are all sinful, then how sound a policy is it to place a great deal of power in a government of one person or of many persons? Though the Christian revelation, for example, does not aim its canon specifically against monarchy or any other kind of high-powered government, the practical outworking of a doctrine of original sin is that power should be restricted, checked, and divided. The American constitutional regime set up by the founding generation should surprise no one. It was a likely outcome not only of a group of thinkers influenced by Locke, but also by the Calvinism that had long been prominent in the new world as the faith of the Puritans.
This suspicion of power continues to unite social conservatives and libertarians. While libertarians might protest that social conservatives seek to expand the government's interest in "private" matters of sex, reproduction, and marriage, the reality is that they have primarily fought a rearguard action in which they attempt to preserve laws under attack by an activist judiciary. Social conservatives have not fought for some new regime of moral authority at the expense of freedom. Rather, they have tried to save the old one because of the educational effect of law.
When it comes to new ideas about expanding government, social conservatives are largely still quite reserved exactly because of their desire not to feed a bureaucratic beast likely to develop an agenda independent of its intended purpose. As a group, they would far prefer to see mediating institutions take on the great social reforms of the day, just as they would prefer to see the church return to a much more prominent role in addressing both the needs and root causes of poverty. Another issue that offers great promise for the relationship between social/religious conservatives and libertarians is school choice. Prior to September 11, the movement for school choice was gaining steam very rapidly. It was the rare initiative that seemed to fit libertarian purposes easily while simultaneously addressing the question of social justice. After September 11, the war on terror sucked all the air out of the room for creative social policy advances, and school choice moved well down the national agenda.
School choice hasn't gone away, though. It is a matter that promises to re-emerge powerfully when domestic policy again moves to center focus. A great many evangelicals probably came to know of Milton Friedman because of his work in school choice rather than because of his justly famous broader work in economic theory. For libertarians the interest comes from harnessing the power of competition to improve the entire educational system and to take a step toward privatizing a massive public undertaking. Social conservatives perceive those virtues, but are more interested in the protection school choice offers for their right to control the education of their children and to insulate them from what they view as the indoctrination of left-wing ideology.
So, can the marriage be saved? Are libertarians and social conservatives destined to grow further apart or can they unite around these points of connection involving social capital, suspicion of government power, and the privatization of public education? I submit the points of connection, notwithstanding messy public blow-ups like the Huckabee/Club for Growth affair, are much stronger than the forces pulling the two groups apart. This survey demonstrates how much they have in common and how fruitful conversation between the two can be.
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We saw the attempt at coalition between Libertarian/neo-liberal forces and the conservative religious sector setting school choice as a policy with which they could unite. So, Clinton/Bush/Obama started this K-12 school choice to appease religious schools but I think these several years have shown the conservative religious groups that Wall Street global corporate neo-liberals---Libertarians have a different goal---global corporate K-12 with Common Core and evaluation/testing/teach to the test kind of eliminates what the conservative Christians thought they were getting. So, all this support for privatization of K-12 came with school choice while social Democrats fight to keep our public education strong. What we are getting is just what Wall Street global corporate neo-liberals wanted----a vocational tracking with no liberal arts and humanities to disrupt the movement into the workplace. Charters that are religious in the past will be gone soon if this SCHOOL CHOICE farce continues.
The Age of Enlightenment with its freemasonry centered on wealthy families and the genius amongst them----so that is still the goal of neo-liberal education reform only now the global rich will be those freemasons. The movement around the world in nations tied to International Economic Zones are----atheism and humanism.
Remember, the dictator of Brunei may lead a Muslim nation but he is not Muslim. A dictator in Chile may lead a Catholic nation but he/she is not Catholic. Clinton/Bush/Obama may walk into a Christian church but they are not Christian. All these leaders involved in the building of ONE WORLD International Economic Zones are all working towards eliminating that pressure of religion needed in integrating a global workforce.
It is the Wall Street Baltimore Development partnered with conservative Christian churches that have moved this very bad Race to the Top school choice corporate K-12 policy having made citizens the big losers----well, next come the religious charters.
I think home schooled, private religious schools, and public schools can feel they are losing in global corporate K-12.
HUMANISM OVER HUMANITIES.
What is School Choice?THE FRIEDMAN FOUNDATION’S GOAL
We believe public education funds should follow students to the schools or services that best fit their needs.
Here’s how school choice opponents believe education funding should work in America.
- Student Enrollment
- 87% attend public schools
- 10% enroll in private schools
- 3% learn at home
- Student Funding
- 100% for public schools
- 0% for private schools
- 0% for home schools
- Student Enrollment
- 87% attend public schools
- 10% enroll in private schools
- 3% learn at home
- Student Funding
- 87% for public schools
- 10% for private schools
- 3% for home schools
__________________________________________'Vadim Antonov
Vadim Antonov
Not possible. Marxism and classical liberalism (aka libertarianism in US) are logically incompatible'.
'Jacob VanWagoner
Jacob VanWagoner, on a left-to-right scale, I'm Up.
Fundamentally, Marxism at the end of the day calls for abolition of private property. Fundamentally, Libertarianism holds the right to own private property according to a person's own will as sacred. The two are incompatible'.
After 3 decades of being lied to, cheated, and having all wealth stolen by Clinton/Bush/Obama far-right neo-liberals/Libertarians----we are now supposed to believe that a movement of LEFTIST LIBERTARIAN MARXISTS are going to grab hold of this far-right Wall Street global corporate naked capitalism. Watching this Greek minister graduated from Harvard using all the EURO banking policies from credit default swaps to bond leveraging as Finance minister elected by Greek citizens as being left-leaning---NONE OF THIS HAS ANYTHING TO DO WITH LEFT-LEANING MARXISM. This is yet another spin to what is simply the far-right autocratic fascist global corporate rule. As with Stalin, Mao, and Hitler the far-right use very militaristic, authoritarian, repressive measures to get people in line with goals---and this is to what the US will need as first world Democratic citizens are pushed into International Economic Zone global corporate campus/global factory model. Religion cannot hold up during these kinds of political movements ergo---they always call them socialist as in Democratic socialism-----or Marxist as in Mao's----------
The Great Leap Forward (Chinese: 大跃进; pinyin: Dà yuè jìn) of the People's Republic of China (PRC) was an economic and social campaign by the Communist Party of China (CPC) from 1958 to 1961. The campaign was led by Mao Zedong and aimed to rapidly transform the country from an agrarian economy into a socialist society through rapid industrialization and collectivization.
Rapid industrialization has been what Clinton neo-liberal International Economic Zone policies did overseas these several decades----and it was not left-leaning.
Is it possible to be a libertarian Marxist, like the Greek finance minister claims to be?
7 Answers
Simon Kinahan, Software developer, EDA guy, reluctant product manager
896 Views • Simon has 30+ answers in Politics
Yes. Left-libertarianism is a fairly well established position, and many people who subscribe to it also have basically Marxist economics. There are even such people within the US libertarian party - Charles W. Johnson, for instance, although they're a tiny minority. Kevin Carson gives a good explanation of Free Market Anti-Capitalism if you want to see the logical conclusion of this line of thinking.
As to how you do this - for starters, you have to abandon Marx & Engels political program as hopelessly authoritarian. Since its also hopelessly outdated (universal suffrage did not lead to communism) that's no great loss, but you also have to ignore all of its Leninist and Trotskyite successors barring maybe a few that have faint glimmers of some kind of conscience. That leaves you with a reading of Marx's economics that says that without coercion, the entire value of goods would accrue to the people who labored to create them, with nothing left for rent, profit or interest paid to the owners of property.
Where you go from there is highly idiosyncratic - there is no specific political program. Most people following this line of thought seem to be anarchists, so they're expecting some kind of self-organization to emerge in the absence of a state that's market-based but where capital is collectively owned by the laborers using or providing it. This doesn't necessarily entail any contradictions, although it does obviously raise questions of efficiency.
If anything there's an even tinier number of people who want to hold to socialist ideas, don't believe in direct coercion of property owners, and believe we need some kind of state to exist. I assume that's Yanis Varoufakis, or he wouldn't be a finance minister. I can't find a clear explanation anywhere of what he believes, but if he's like most others in that camp his short term program is probably indistinguishable from any other moderate socialist or social democrat, with some emphasis on lessening the amount of coercion to which the relatively powerless are exposed and encouraging self-organization.
Written 18 Feb 2015 • View Upvotes
Achilleas Vortselas, Athenian
Most Viewed Writer in Politics of Greece
There is a very popular saying that goes*:
"In Greece, you are what you claim to be."
It is a very well targeted saying, since in our anarchic society, posturing is quite widespread and ,very often, it succeeds.
* It was made popular by painter Yannis Tsarouchis, in the 60's. He claimed that it was first uttered by actor G. Karoussos.
Written 11 Feb 2015 •
Rob Weir, Political Animal
Only if one misunderstands Marx, libertarianism, or both.
Written 13 Feb 2015 •
Kenneth Cochran, Software developer, staunch advocate of the right to arm bears.
314 Views • Kenneth has 90+ answers in Politics
Yes. I have met some that self identify as libertarian Marxists or socialists. They reject the notion that socialism can only be accomplished through authoritarian control. Instead they believe socialism can be accomplished through voluntary means. Marx himself defined communism as an anarchy with collective ownership of the means of production. Personally I have my doubts as to whether anarchy or socialism are sustainable especially when combined. Such a society depends on enlightened selflessness and to me this goes against natural self interest.
Having said this it does seem a bit odd to see a high ranking government official in charge of money claim to have an ideology characterized by anti-capitalism and anarchism.
Written 14 Feb 2015 •
Aashishji Dimri, A serious student of politics
219 Views
One can be an advocate of liberty ,some one like Socrates or Victor Hugo and one can be Marxist, if one sincerely practices his idea of austerity and pro poor !
Irrespective of his personal likes and dislikes, the real question is- Will he be able to protect Greece in its worst economic crisis !
Written 25 Jun 2015 • View Upvotes
Vadim Antonov
Not possible. Marxism and classical liberalism (aka libertarianism in US) are logically incompatible. Marxism fundamentally sees people as members of classes and is concerned with correcting supposed inter-class injustice by force. Libertarian political philosophy is fundamentally individualistic and decries any use of force violating individual rights.
Written Feb 11, 2015 • View Upvotes
Jacob VanWagoner, on a left-to-right scale, I'm Up.
Fundamentally, Marxism at the end of the day calls for abolition of private property. Fundamentally, Libertarianism holds the right to own private property according to a person's own will as sacred. The two are incompatible.
There is such a thing as a libertarian socialist, but it calls for 100% voluntary participation, and limits the "public property" to the community level -- the small community owns the property, and the members of the community own the community and have property rights over it.Written Feb 16, 2015
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One way to know whether a political pundit is left-leaning is the measure----does he appear on the Clinton neo-liberal media outlet MSNBC---especially Maddow. They do not allow anyone not tied to far-right neo-liberalism/Libertarianism. Chomsky has been brought from obscurity since 2008 crash to fill this policy push towards Libertarian Marxism.
Someone can be anti-war----anti-government interference in foreign national affairs as Chomsky is and still be far-right Libertarian.
Noam Chomsky, Rachel Maddow Protest Quotes in Madison
Martin Eigenberger
Uploaded on Feb 21, 2011Protest signs referencing Chomsky and Rachel Maddow were among those spotted at the pro-democracy/union rally in Madison, Wisconsin. Please consult AlterNet for up-to-the-hour developments and related stories.
MSNBC's Controlled Opposition: Myth of the Liberal Media
Reich-Wing Watch
Published on Mar 4, 2016MNSBC is just part of facade put on by corporate America to give the illusion of debate. Best described in Noam Chomsky's "Manufacturing Consent." Hillary Clinton is to the right of DONALD TRUMP on some issues such as foreign policy and trade. Yet you wouldn't have the slightest clue in the world if you relied only on MSNBC for political coverage. Liberal MSNBC hosts such as Phil Donahue, Ashley Banified, Jesse Ventura, Cenk Uygur, Ed Schultz, and Melissa Harris-Perry, have either been fired or pushed out for not submitting to the overall MSNBC narrative.
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This is far too long for most folks to read but the abstract centers on the terminology of this Social Darwinism global corporate 1% wealth crowd. Hopkins is ground zero for these far-right Wall Street global corporate ideas. I spoke earlier about concerns over the return of eugenics---or what is now called the NEW eugenics----here we see this humanism working towards ONE WORLD ONE FAITH. This is what Libertarian Marxism will move towards and what will that faith be?
One World, One Faith:
The Quest for Unity in Julian Huxley's Religion of Evolutionary Humanism
Paul T. Phillips
Abstract
Sir Julian Huxley (1887-1975), celebrated British scientist and philosopher, strove through most of his career to establish a non-theistic, rationalist belief system to replace Christianity and other world religions. Believing that the twentieth century provided a unique opportunity for this to happen, evolutionary humanism, as he termed his secular faith, gave direction to most of Huxley's diverse activities as a public intellectual. Rooted in evolutionary science, combined with Idealism, liberal values and a profound belief in progress, Huxley's vision was also suffused with a strong desire for unity in human affairs. This paper examines that quest for unity, the purposes it served, and its reception.
KeywordsJulian Huxley, evolution, science, progress, idealism, unity, religion, christianity, rationalist, planning, eugenics
Before Julian Huxley, there had been others, such as Auguste Comte, who had advocated replacing older religious traditions, especially Christianity, with new, non-theistic, rationalist systems of belief. What was unusual in the system proposed by the celebrated British scientist and philosopher, Sir Julian Huxley (1887–1975), was its extraordinarily strong penchant for unity. With an urgent message that humankind was master of its own fate, and at a time that was pivotal in the history of the planet, Huxley offered a new vision, or secular religion, necessary for the future. An analysis of the quest for unity in his belief system and the purposes which it was designed to serve, as well as the effectiveness of his message form the substance of this essay.
Early in his professional career, Huxley had sketched what he meant by religion. He described "scientific," and later, "evolutionary humanism," in his longest dissertation on the subject, Religion Without Revelation, published in 1927. A substantially revised edition appeared some thirty years later. Huxley believed that a new faith was needed in a modern world [End Page 613] marked by the rapid decline of existing religions. His inspiration came via a casual reading of a volume of Lord Morley's essays while he was awaiting surgery in Colorado. Morley's observation that "the next great task of science will be to create a religion for humanity"1 and his use of the word "science," were crucial for Huxley. Morley made it clear to him that "any real progress in religion nowadays would be the slow product of generations of thinkers and workers reacting on the common thought and practice of the time."2 Huxley did not envisage himself, initially at least, as a Luther or Wesley, let alone a Jesus, and presumed that evolutionary humanism would continue to develop during his lifetime and after. While at first he referred to his religion more as an "attitude of mind"3 than anything else, he would develop an enduring set of principles in the years that followed.
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Since the Age of Enlightenment freemasons were largely scientists whose discoveries advanced industrial/global market products one would look to this idea of scientific progress and social cooperation as fitting right into a ONE WORLD global corporate campus/global factory human capital distribution and it has no deism----no GOD----perfect for far-right Libertarian Marxism.
'replaced by a new system based on scientific progress and social cooperation.
HUMANITIES VS HUMANISM
If human capital are slated to live, eat, be schooled, work on global corporate campuses controlled by their corporate non-profits then why would we need religious charity?
Evolutionary humanism
Harun Yahya's Influences
Julian Huxley, one of Darwin’s leading supporters, sought to place the latter’s biological argument onto a philosophical footing and constructed a new religion under the name of evolutionary humanism.
The aim of this religion was to “ensure that the evolutionary process on Earth reached its maximum conclusion.” This was not restricted to strong organisms living longer and trying to reproduce more offspring. In addition, “it was foreseen that man would develop his own abilities to the highest level.” To put it another way, efforts were to be made to enable mankind to proceed to stages more advanced than the one that human beings are in today. Huxley offered a full definition of the term Humanism:
I use the word ‘Humanist’ to mean someone who believes that man is just as much a natural phenomenon as an animal or a plant, that his body, his mind, and his soul were not supernaturally created but are all products of evolution, and that the is not under the control or guidance of any supernatural Being or beings, but has to rely on himself and his own powers. 156
Huxley’s suggestion that human beings’ sacred aim was to accelerate their own evolution had a profound effect on the American philosopher John Dewey. He developed this line and founded the movement known as Religious Humanism in 1933, publishing the famous Humanist Manifesto. The main idea he emphasized was that the time had come for the traditional Theistic (God-oriented) religions to be done away with and replaced by a new system based on scientific progress and social cooperation.
The deaths of 50 million people in World War II as a result of “scientific progress” rocked the optimism exhibited in the Humanist Manifesto. In the wake of similar blows, Dewey’s followers were forced to partially revise their views, and they published the second Humanist Manifesto in 1973. This one admitted that science may sometimes harm mankind, but preserved the basic idea: Man should now direct his own evolution and could do so through science. As the Manifesto said:
Using technology wisely, we can control our environment, conquer poverty, markedly reduce disease, extend our life-span, significantly modify our behavior, alter the course of human evolution and cultural development, unlock vast new powers, and provide humankind with unparalleled opportunity for achieving an abundant and meaningful life.157
In fact these ideas, adopted consciously or subconsciously by all Darwinists, make crystal clear the fundamental beliefs of the Religion of Evolution. An imaginary process of species evolution is first dreamed up, and it is then assumed that this process is the creator of everything. The further, it is thought that this process can represent salvation for humanity, and it is believed that humanity’s sacred destiny is to serve that process. In short, evolution is both a Creator, and a savior, and a sacred purpose. To short, it is worshipped as a deity.
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